Wild and Free...That's Me!

I don’t like ass kissers, flag wavers, or team players. I like people who buck the system. Individualists. I often warn people: “Somewhere along the way, someone is going to tell you ‘There is no “I” in Team’. What you should tell them is, ‘Maybe not. But there is an “I” in independence, individuality, and integrity.

— George Carlin

I couldn’t have written that quote better myself!

Some of you may or may not know that I’m a very free spirited Woman. A Force of Nature (as my beautiful friend Haneefah calls me) who likes to break the rules, create my own, and encourage others to do the same.

Today’s written Heart Conversation is about that very thing regarding something close to my heart, how my views slightly differ than the rest, and how my Wild Awakened voice doesn’t always connect with others...

The beautiful Ancient Art of Belly Dance

Just one of the many loves my heart is passionate about, mainly for my own personal desires, is The beautiful art of Belly Dance dancing, a ‘Movement Meditation’ (I like to call it), especially the more slow sensual tribal moves, but I see it and use it in a very different way then most.

I’ve been integrating aspects of it into my weekly life for a few years now, on and off, I don’t have a ‘qualification’ (not that you need one for belly dance moves anyway) i haven't attended loads of classes, and I don’t place myself at any so-called level, as I’ve got something so much more important than all that - a deep passion to dance, to move, a love for music, and a strong desire in my heart to feel into my body, going with my own flow. Those that have seen my dancing, whether in person or in videos, can (hopefully) see how passionate and fluent I am. I pretty much taught myself, danced many times for many hours, studied the moves in-depth, and had loads of bloody fun whilst doing so!

The truth is, when it comes to something like Belly Dance, especially when you are dancing for a more spiritually connecting purpose like myself and not performance ect, there really are no rules, you don’t need qualifications or to be at any certain level, you just need to have passion and a strong desire to move.

The truth can trigger

The end of last year sometime, I wrote a beautifully open hearted, liberating share for Women (like I usually do), which was entitled ‘Woman, you are FREE to be Wild!’. In this post I was expressing my heart on how I feel life and society has taken over, putting rules on everything, (like belly dance) whilst sharing my own views on this gorgeous Feminine ancient Dance and how we really don’t need qualifications or levels to learn it and be the best we can be (as said above, and I like to believe I’m proof of that), whether we attend classes workshops, or teach ourselves through videos and personal tuition, we need an authentic passion, lots of heart, a want to continue practicing in our everyday lives, and most importantly a deep inner trust within our own bodies in how each movement feels right for us. To me personally, through my own experience with the dance and my body, these are the most essential things, mainly for our own personal evolvement with it, but they’re also core qualities to have if wanting to share this ancient dance to others...much more than qualifications or levels will ever give you...Why? because the truth is you can be at a ‘high’ level in belly dance (maybe weekly dancing for years with not much heart, passion, or connection to the dance) and may still not be as good as a Woman who is at a ‘low’ level who may not have been dancing as long but has great passion, feeling, flow, and daily commitment. Truthfully though, being the best belly dancer you can be, for yourself or to inspire other Women, it all comes down to the qualities I’ve listed above, and the more you connect with your body from the heart, from a place of true feeling, the more your body will naturally flow.

I was also sharing how that years ago, at a time when Belly Dance probably wasn’t even called Belly Dance, and it definitely wasn’t a dance Women got qualifications or levels for (and most likely had no mirror to dance in front of), was actually just a dance Women would do in birth as a fertility rite which was passed down from Mother to Daughter, and was also a very spiritually connecting dance to honour a Female deity, to honour ourselves, the Feminine, and to honour Mother Earth, (how beautiful?!). This is how I myself choose to still connect with it, in. my own way and for my own reasons. The moves that are taught in Belly Dance aren’t ‘Belly Dance moves’ per-say, and Belly Dance doesn’t ‘own’ them, they are moves all Women’s bodies were born to do and can naturally do with time and practice, once we let go of the ego and our deep fear about looking ‘sexy’ and being sensual - yes, we Women and Mother’s can be both spiritual and sexy!

Whether you believe this or not, these are simply my own views, views that feel aligned to me. It may not be ‘right’ to some, but it’s definitely not ‘wrong’ either.

Any way, after sharing my post, I had a Female Belly Dance teacher (who’s name I’ll keep private) who was obviously triggered by the truth and free-spirited way in which I was sharing, feeling the need to comment on my beautiful ‘non-conforming’ post, telling me how it was wrong to say we don’t need levels, that I was being ‘negative’ towards Belly Dance, and that it’s meant to be about Sisterhood (I guess she must have thought I was negative and wasn’t being ‘Sisterhoodly’ because I wasn’t conforming and my opinion differed to hers...)

I never re-acted to her calling me negative etc as there’s no point, then this morning a quote popped up today that for some reason my mind straight away thought of her, her reaction, and other Women like her who try their best to silence ‘free-spirited’ Women like myself who truly have a voice, who do things differently, and who aren’t afraid to shine that difference into the world, so of course, being the inspirational speaker and writer which I am I felt I just had to now write and share this experience, including the quote (above by George Carlin) I saw today, with you all, in hope it will remind another Woman that no matter who tries to silence you, to bring you down, to limit your ‘out of the box’ way of being, or who criticises you simply because your way of doing something differs to theirs, never allow it to stop you from continuing to be the difference which makes the difference. Never allow it to hold you back from speaking your truth (even if it sometimes means standing alone or not being ‘liked’). Never allow their judgment upon you to effect how you see yourself. And neverever change to fit in with the crowd.

In truth, when this incident first happened it saddened my heart, knowing that another Woman felt so obviously threatened by my ‘wild free-spirited self’ that she had to take my ‘non-personal’ post to heart and then make a very ‘personal’ attack upon me (hence the name calling), but, once my heart and strong wild Woman no-nonsense essence kicked in, I said to myself “well, if being different or outspoken makes me negative, then so be it. If being unafraid to share my own views and not be scared to try a new way of something makes me un-sisterhoodly, then so be it. And if just by being my non-confirming self makes me not liked, then so bloody be it, because I’d much rather live my one short precious life my way, as myself, than live it as somebody else.

Final word...

No matter how kind you are or what good you do, you are always going to come up against people who want to challenge your bright light, your difference, your talents, and your own way of being...perhaps it’s because they get scared of your strength, perhaps they feel threatened by your courage, perhaps they are holding hidden insecurities within themselves and you mirror that…Or, perhaps they’re just arseholes!

Either way, you can’t go through life worrying about what others may think of you, because if you do you will never allow yourself to be free and step into all your own heart is calling you to be, and this world needs more Women who aren't afraid to speak up, to be Wild, to inspire, to encourage that freedom in others, to dance to the beat of their own drum, and to break the rules...